Marketing for a Brand New Website

[cindyp]

I just launched my new store FIona Fitness and would like to hear feedback on what you experienced marketers use as your very first steps to get traffic and sales?  I'd like to get targeted traffic, eventually, and I do know that FB and IG will probably be my best channels for marketing.  But should I promote posts?  Get ads?  Do split testing ads right away?  Or just drive traffic with ppc?  There are literally so many places to begin that I don't know where to begin! lol  Any advice will be appreciated and thanks, ahead of time 🙂

[Nick · Accepted solution]

Hi Fiona, 

Nick here from Shopify. 

Congratulations on launching, I believe that launching in itself is a success. You have some really great questions also, let's look into them below:

• Facebook marketing - I'm glad you brought up using Facebook ads as they are a great way to gain some exposure and build your brand name up on social media. There is a great technique I like to use when marketing with Facebook ads called the 3x3x3 method. The 3x3x3 method is focused on finding the right audience for your products. I like to be tactical and know where I am spending the ad money and this is a great way to find and build a list of target audiences who are genuinely interested in your brand, store, and products. The technique starts by creating 3 ads but all of them targeted to 3 different audiences and with 3 different sets of copy/ images. The ads should all have a similar but small budget so you can track how well they are doing and over time you will see some ads performing better than others and it is here you can drop some of the ads which aren't doing as well and increase the budget on the ads which are. You can then note down the ads doing better as a key audience for future reference of more Facebook ads. There are some good tutorials for this online one of which you can find here. 
• Instagram marketing - Instagram marketing is another good way to find and build your audience while getting your brand out there. It's safe to say there is a large fitness community on Instagram, so I don't see any trouble for you in finding people who are active on the platform talking about the industry you are involved in. It's what you do once you find them that is the key. I've found that organic engagement is a great introduction to this and is monetarily cost effective too. The idea of finding people who are interested in the industry you sell in (fitness in your case) and having real conversations with them without pushing for any type of sale. You can create conversations through your own posts and replying to peoples comments, or going into other profiles and actively creating conversations in the comment section with people there. The idea is you know the person you are talking to is keen on the fitness industry already and by talking to them, you are getting their attention where they will hopefully check out your profile, give you a follow and even looking at the store to buy a product as the ultimate goal. A top Shopify Expert conducted a podcast with a store owner who implemented this tactic to great success which you can listen to here. 

You mentioned about duplicating your website in the title of your post. This is something I would be careful with, in a sense of not having the same content on multiple websites, even if it is the same store. This is something I would strongly recommend against. The reason being is that this will result in Google looking at the 3 stores as individual websites with the same content, and therefore drop your rankings. Google looks at it this way to prevent copycat stores and keep the content original. If you were to have multiple stores, your best bet would be to have each store with its own twist on the content that is location specific. 

I linked some blog posts for both Instagram and Facebook marketing at the beginning of each section above also which could also be of some use to you. 

I hope this helps! 

All the best, Nick

[Nick · Accepted solution]

Hi Fiona, 

Nick here from Shopify. 

Congratulations on launching, I believe that launching in itself is a success. You have some really great questions also, let's look into them below:

• Facebook marketing - I'm glad you brought up using Facebook ads as they are a great way to gain some exposure and build your brand name up on social media. There is a great technique I like to use when marketing with Facebook ads called the 3x3x3 method. The 3x3x3 method is focused on finding the right audience for your products. I like to be tactical and know where I am spending the ad money and this is a great way to find and build a list of target audiences who are genuinely interested in your brand, store, and products. The technique starts by creating 3 ads but all of them targeted to 3 different audiences and with 3 different sets of copy/ images. The ads should all have a similar but small budget so you can track how well they are doing and over time you will see some ads performing better than others and it is here you can drop some of the ads which aren't doing as well and increase the budget on the ads which are. You can then note down the ads doing better as a key audience for future reference of more Facebook ads. There are some good tutorials for this online one of which you can find here. 
• Instagram marketing - Instagram marketing is another good way to find and build your audience while getting your brand out there. It's safe to say there is a large fitness community on Instagram, so I don't see any trouble for you in finding people who are active on the platform talking about the industry you are involved in. It's what you do once you find them that is the key. I've found that organic engagement is a great introduction to this and is monetarily cost effective too. The idea of finding people who are interested in the industry you sell in (fitness in your case) and having real conversations with them without pushing for any type of sale. You can create conversations through your own posts and replying to peoples comments, or going into other profiles and actively creating conversations in the comment section with people there. The idea is you know the person you are talking to is keen on the fitness industry already and by talking to them, you are getting their attention where they will hopefully check out your profile, give you a follow and even looking at the store to buy a product as the ultimate goal. A top Shopify Expert conducted a podcast with a store owner who implemented this tactic to great success which you can listen to here. 

You mentioned about duplicating your website in the title of your post. This is something I would be careful with, in a sense of not having the same content on multiple websites, even if it is the same store. This is something I would strongly recommend against. The reason being is that this will result in Google looking at the 3 stores as individual websites with the same content, and therefore drop your rankings. Google looks at it this way to prevent copycat stores and keep the content original. If you were to have multiple stores, your best bet would be to have each store with its own twist on the content that is location specific. 

I linked some blog posts for both Instagram and Facebook marketing at the beginning of each section above also which could also be of some use to you. 

I hope this helps! 

All the best, Nick

[cindyp]

Nick, you are the best, thank you for all that info, your time is truly appreciated.  This info will give me my homework over the next few days, and one thing I am learning for sure (which I've never done before) is to keep my own spread sheets and organize my marketing better - so thanks again for a great place to begin!   As for the heading of this post - I have to admit that was a mistake that I didn't even notice until I got the reply notification in my email. lol  I think I inadvertently hit a "paste" function and added the "translate or duplicate website..."  I intended to type "Marketing for New Website," and idk if that can be changed at this point - but thanks for your concern! 

[Nick]

Hi Fiona, 

Thanks for getting back to me about this. It can definitely be a learning curve, so it's good to hear you are taking the time to research and learn it further but it's also vitally important to the next step of your business. Once you have the site made it's down to the marketing to get your brand and name out there for more people to notice. 

No problem at all regarding the heading. It can be changed if you'd like to change it, it might help some other people visiting the community with the post heading having an appropriate title. If you click the 3 dots to edit the message in the top right you can also edit the title. If it doesn't allow you to or you can't find it, not to worry. Just let me know and I can change it for you if you'd like. 

Wishing you all the best, Nick

[cindyp]

Hi NIck, 

Thank you, again, for your help.  I have decided to do some Brand Awareness campaigns with FB and I did one A/B test (sadly the results were exactly the same for both ads! lol).  I will do the 3x3x3 that you suggested next - and thanks for the link to adespresso! 

I tried to change the wording in the Subject line, however the choices of clicking the three dots were "subscribe to RSS" "Float topic" "Mark topic as new" and so on - but no "edit."  Would you mind changing the name to something more appropriate for me?  Maybe, "Marketing for Brand New Website" thanks 🙂

[cindyp]

Hi NIck, 

Thank you, again, for your help.  I have decided to do some Brand Awareness campaigns with FB and I did one A/B test (sadly the results were exactly the same for both ads! lol).  I will do the 3x3x3 that you suggested next - and thanks for the link to adespresso!   (And I think I was able to change the subject line - we will see in a minute lol)

[cindyp]

Hi Nick,

Thanks again.  I have decided to do a Brand Awareness campaign in FB first, (I did an A/B test but both results were exactly the same lol).  Next I will try your 3x3x3 strategy - and thanks for the link for Adespresso!  The more info the better.  I'm trying to change the Subject but so far I keep getting errors - if this reply goes through then we will see if it worked or not! lol  Sorry for the duplicate reply - I keep getting errors during this process and it seems I cannot edit the Subject line. 🙂

[Nick · Accepted solution]

That's great to hear about the Facebook ads. It will take some testing, so if some of the ads are the same, you could maybe create a more diverse audience for each ad? There is a good third-party YouTube video going through this also which you can find here. 

I also changed the title of the post for you so it is more appropriate now. 🙂

Best of luck with everything, Nick

[cmorales]

If you have enough budget, you may some SEO Specialist to rank your website in any search engine platform such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.

[dannahoney]

Work with your SEO. It would be great to generate great content. If you have the opportunity for the blog in the header (or footer), include it (of course it depends on the topic of your site). My friend does this even with the website for selling wedding dresses. She writes about wedding trouble and pieces of advice to solve them.

This helps her site to be higher on Google. 
And avoid disharmony on your website. It should be functional, beautiful and easy to understand. Read here how not to appear in the group of bad websites 

[CustomStuff]

Hi Cindy,

Social Media Marketing is definitely the way of today - however don't overlook conventional "hands on" marketing avenues for your brand. (Loving the site btw)

It would pay you to develop a range of branded merchandise for your brand  - that could be sold online (to demonstrate perceived value) but can also be used for giveaways at tradeshows and events etc... or to include as a GWP (Gift With Purchase) when orders get shipped. (This generates tremendous good will and word of mouth from satisfied customers.

Being in the Fitness Industry, options here are many - cost effective ideas could include drink bottles, sweat bands, gym towels, even gym bags (that can double as value add packaging for special offers).

Although we are in Australia - our website has a Health and Fitness Theme in the site search that may give you ideas. If you have a hard time finding a Promotional Products Reseller to help - reach out to the PPAI in the USA - they are the industry body.

Bets of luck with your business

[Globetrotter1]

We launched our site at about the same time and have only had 1 sale!    While our store products and design is not 100% set yet, we are incredibly frustrated because we cannot figure out how to get people to come to the site!  Nothing, nada, zip!  Analytics says we have had 231 sessions since we went live, and my guess is that the majority of those are our own visits or that of bots.  We have products listed on ebay, with no response.  We tried a couple of test Facebook boost and ads, got some likes, but no one even visited the site or made a purchase or inquiry, so we kind of consider that a waste of time and money.  And frankly, we are not big fans of Facebook as a sales or marketing tool or anything else.  Too many flakes! 

We have a popup to sign up for our newsletter but no one has signed up.  We have a limited budget so creating Google ads would be a thought, BUT we are not able to sustain a bunch of ads if they are not going to work.  We aren't inclined to throw good money after bad!

It looks like your site is built on the same template as ours, The Globetrotters Outfitter, so I don't think is the site itself (although we know we need to do some things to make it better) is a big problem.

Our question to you and to anyone else that can offer some advise, is how and where to advertise without spending a fortune on ads that offer little to no ROI?  We are old school so most of what we read about may as well be in a foreign language as far as marketing goes.  We can commit to a certain amount of funding for ads but when that is tapped out, we are done!  The money is not unlimited and we are committed to building the business as we go and put profits back into the business as it grows, but it has to grow or we will fold up the tent and move on.

Any suggestions for waht anyone has done in the past that brought in business would be greatly appreciated!!

[CustomStuff]

Getting awareness for your online business can be frustrating and confusing.

Whilst Facebook is a great way to interact with people who already know you, Instagram is a great way to attract new prospects and hopefully then clients. 

I'd suggest setting up at least one Instagram page and post engaging content. (If you need help understanding how to do this, including hashtags etc... YouTube is your friend)

The market you are in is a great muse for sensation tips and hints content offering advice on how to make peoples trips run smoother. Good content for both Insta and a Blog (and it can all be free, except for man/woman hours to generate the content)

You mentioned you are old skool with your marketing approach - so I'd suggest making sure you have supply of thank you gifts for people when you interact with them. Make sure you leave something useful behind to expand your brand exposure.  RFID is a big buzz word for travellers and security. There is a large range of RFID security promotional products about that are cost effective (and others at the premium end) that will assist with getting your brand out there.

Best of luck...

[Globetrotter1]

Thanks for the reply!  When i said "old school", emphasis should be on the "old"!  We do not live in "Social Media".  We have retired several years ago and are looking for this venture to give some extra income for our travels.

We do not have an personal Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest, etc account so we have no idea on how they work or how to use them for any purpose.  We setup a Facebook business page but it has to be tied to a personal account and we really are not comfortable with our personal information accessible thru the business for various personal reasons.   Privacy in our personal lives is very important.

This is a drop ship store so there is little live interaction with people, so I am not sure how to actually use your thank you gift idea.

We have a blog section on the site, towards the bottom, but do you think it should be separate from the site, like a subdomain?

[CustomStuff]

I fully appreciate and understand your privacy concerns - however on Instagram (in particular) once you have an account you can setup a separate account to interact with on behalf of the business. (hence shielding your personal info). 

"YouTube is your friend" meant that this is a great place to get tutorials on how to help you achieve the results you are looking for.

Sorry - not knowing how your business is structured I obviously drew the wrong suggestion for the branded merchandise. The idea referred more to interacting with clients and prospects via business and social groups - trade events etc...and making sure they leave the chat with a memento of your business - a promotional product. If you produce some useful products with your brand/website on them, it results in much greater impact and reach than print advertising.

I hope that helps?

[Globetrotter1]

I tried using Instagram as you suggested, and while this may be difficult for someone younger than I to understand, It is to hard to figure out how to use it effectively.  It is a mobile app and I don't use my phone for much more than a phone, reading my email and search the web some.  I don't have pictures of our site or products on the phone, or tablet, as all of that is either on line or on the desktop and I can't even create a post from there, which is where I live.  It just does not impress me as a business tool and from what I can tell the users are predominantly under 30, and that is not necessarily the market we want to reach.

Your suggestion about the thank you gifts was a good one, albeit difficult for us to implement, not impossible, but difficult.  We will give that some thought.  And we will look into YouTube for some ideas as well.

Thank you fro taking the time to help us.  It is appreciated!

[ShyamRashun]

There are so many ways you can go about increasing your store traffic, but you have to ensure all the traffic you are getting is right traffic, else it would be disappointing and you won't get the desired sales. See some of the methods which I have used in my store to increase the traffic and sales. You can do it on your own or you can depend on some of the cool apps in the Shopify app store. Its really worked and I am happy to share with you.

Grow your email lists through email campaigns - Prepare an email list and start sending your campaigns, a recent email marketing survey found that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment is $50!

SmartrMail[https://apps.shopify.com/smartrmail] is an app helps you plan and run your email marketing, this app is considered as Mailchimp alternate for Shopify store owners.

Work with influencers - This means working people who can influence your potential buyers. Research and shortlist some of the influencers related to fitness and yoga in Instagram and Facebook, approach them to market your product through their pages.
Carro: Influencer Marketing[https://apps.shopify.com/carro], this app will help you find your influencer and help you market your product seamlessly.

Blogging - Content marketing is a great way of boosting your traffic and create a credible brand authority among the topics in which your products are related. Blogging won't give you a result all of a sudden, its a slow process and it gives you a longer mileage to your brand. Create a blog, link with your store and market it wisely.
Related Blog Posts [https://apps.shopify.com/related-blog-posts] will help you market your blog content within your store.

Give away programs. - Run a contest, invite participants, announce the winner and give away a free product as the prize. It can increase your traffic by encouraging people to visit your store. you will get a mouth to mouth publicity as well. Besides, you can increase your twitter, facebook and Instagram followers and grow your email list.

Referral program - Word of mouth marketing is a great way to increase traffic to your store. If you can get people to refer their friends to your e-commerce site, you will increase your traffic. The referrer must be rewarded with some cool discounts or vouchers when the referee made their purchase through the referral link.
Referral Candy [https://apps.shopify.com/referralcandy] is such an app helps you run referral programs among your customers.

Once you achieved the desired rate of traffic in your store, you can use apps which helps to increase average order value, Conversion rates, and sales, etc. I have some good app recommendations for you, see it from below.

Sales and Discounts: These apps enable you to assign discounts on certain products and shows as flash discounts to the users during their purchase. This will intrigue them to make the purchase. "Bold Discounts"[https://apps.shopify.com/product-discount] is such an app, which help you to set discounts on products and show them as flash discounts to during product browsing, This can help you increase your sales.

Urgency & Social proof: The apps in this category help you display the product reviews on your product page. This creates trust in your products among the users and encourages them to buy it. "Urgency, Social Proof & Timers" [https://apps.shopify.com/fera] this app would be a good pick. It has 3 in 1 feature for creating urgency, Social reviews, and timers.

Upselling and Cross-selling: Apps in this category help you increase the average cart value by pushing products during the purchase. It will be showing your customers the products that perfectly complement their purchase or better product with a slightly increased price. "Upsell with AI recommendations" [https://apps.shopify.com/recommend-similar-looking-products] is such an app it works well with Home and Furniture products. This app is not only upselling products but also suggesting similar looking products as per the user's likings.

Try with these suggestions, good luck 🙂

[Propelguru]

Marketing for a brand new website is not as easy as it seems to be as there are many things to be tested first with a brand new website, like - 

• Target Audience

• Required Budget for Marketing

• Medium or Platform for Marketing

• Content for Marketing

If you are looking for marketing for a brand new website, then these 2 were some of the most common challenges that you will face in your marketing journey.

Propel Guru, full-fledged digital marketing and sales agency can help you in the marketing of your brand new website and can give you the desired results.

[jordangould28]

Hii Cindyp!!

Launching your new venture comes with many questions and confusion..

Having said that, for acquiring quality targeted traffic promoting your post/doing SEO is always the best option. 

However, you should create PPC campaign but only for generating sales.

cheers!!